Lestrange Death Cradle
by Jacalyn Hyde
Summary: You will hate this. Rodolphus POV. One shot. Very sad. The Lestrange children are victims of the war and their own parents. Please read.


They were beautiful. Polaris Mordred and Sadira Vida Lestrange. They were the perfect, healthy, and adorable heirs we needed, the children we loved. The children I loved anyway. Bellatrix never really cared.

She'd waited until her pregnancy was obvious to even tell me about it. She planned to keep the twins all along but never even considered their safety. I actually had to beg the Dark Lord to order her to stay home and take care of them. I had a good argument: this would provide heirs for two influential pureblood families and future followers for Him. The only sacrifice was a few months of Bellatrix's servitude.

To be honest, I thought the time away from Him would do her some good. I didn't like how obsessed she was with Him. I'd figured out long ago it wasn't just for the good of the Cause. If she wanted to risk her life, it was fine, she could take care of herself. But I wasn't going to let her jeopardize the lives of our children.

She wasn't happy about it but she listened to her sister and me. For seven emotionally exhausting months, she did take care of them and let us take care of her. We spent most of that time arguing about names for the children and which school they would attend.

Finally, our perfect son and daughter were born on November eighth 1979. When the Healer tried to hand Bellatrix the boy, she shook her head and pointed at her sister. Narcissa accepted the child with a slightly confused expression. I assumed that Bellatrix did that because she wanted to hold the girl first and Narcissa was pregnant with a boy of her own anyway. But she also refused Sadira and immediately shoved our daughter into my arms.

"Happy now?" She demanded disdainfully. I told myself it was just the exhaustion speaking, she really loved these children. I told myself we'd be great parents for them. I was wrong.

My biggest mistake was leaving her alone with them. The twins were about a week old and she'd recovered enough to take care of them but not enough to return to work. The Dark Lord sent me to track down and kill some suspected Order of the Phoenix members. I obeyed, of course, but I could only think about my children.

When I got home, the house was quiet. Too quiet. For the past few days, if one of the babies wasn't crying, the other certainly was. But the house was completely silent now. I somehow remained calm and called out Bellatrix's name several times without an answer.

I searched and finally found her in the bathroom adjoining one of our guest rooms. She was fully clothed and sitting in the almost overflowing bathtub, cradling Sadira closely against her chest.

"What the hell?" I exclaimed. "Bellatrix, you can't just-" I froze, suddenly noticing something I hadn't before: the baby was unnaturally still and my wife was… crying. My first instinct was denial. I snatched Sadira out of her arms, wrapped a towel around her, and hugged her closely in my arms. But that embrace only confirmed the tragedy. "What happened?" I hissed at the still sobbing Bellatrix.

She just shook her head. Cradling our daughter's still warm corpse in one arm, I used the other to grab a handful of my wife's hair and force her head up so her eyes met mine. "If you even think about using Occlumency, I'm going to tear your hair out," I growled a moment before penetrating her mind. She shivered at that threat; I was always so gentle with her. But not now and never again.

I hysterically searched her thoughts and what I saw almost drove me to murder her. She'd been giving Sadira a bath when she felt her Mark burn and disapparated without a second thought. She returned home only a few minutes before I did and found the baby had drowned.

"You psychotic, fanatic bitch!" I screamed, shoving her head backward so it slammed against the wall. "You couldn't take five more seconds to save your child's life? What in the world is more important than…."

I trailed off, answering my own question: He was more important. I released Bellatrix and held Sadira closely, with both arms now, struggling to decide if I wanted to hold her even tighter or throw her body across the room. Tears of grief and loathing escaped my eyes and I made no move to stop them.

Bellatrix stared up at me but her expression showed more confusion than anything. And, suddenly, I remembered something.

"Where's Polaris?" I shouted with the sort of threatening tone I'd use to interrogate a traitor. "Where is my son?"

"Your son?" She whispered.

"Yes, Bellatrix, mine. If something belongs to you, you love it and take care of it. These children were never yours. Now where is he?"

Before she could answer, one of our house elves apparated into the room. "Jolly heard Master Lestrange shouting. Does Master need…" It squeaked and I interrupted.

"Yes, tell me where Polaris is."

"Young Master Polaris is sleeping…"

"Sleeping?" I cast a quick glare in Bellatrix's direction. "Sleeping, not dead, right?"

"Yes, Mas-"

"Good. Go watch over him."

The elf disapparated and I turned back to Bellatrix. I gently set Sadira down in the sink like I was laying her down to nap. Once my arms were free, I grabbed Bellatrix's hair again.

"What the hell were you thinking?" I demanded. She just stared at me so I tried a more drastic action. I shoved her forward and forced her head under the water. She fought like hell when she realized what I was doing but I held her still with both hands and swung my foot over the side of the tub to pin down her back. She struggled but I had the advantage. I held her like that and slowly counted out sixty seconds.

She came up gasping for air when I finally released her.

"Didn't like that, did you?" The sadist in me demanded. "You killed our child!"

"No, I…"

She trailed off and I grabbed Sadira's body from the sink and practically threw her at Bellatrix. "Look at her!" I hissed. "You did this!"

The tears returned to her face and mine, but hers weren't fooling me. I set Sadira down at the edge of the tub and forced Bellatrix under the water again, for two minutes this time. I left her there, gasping and sobbing and screaming my name half cursing me for almost killing her and half begging me to stay and listen to her side of the story. I ignored both and went up to the nursery, taking Sadira with me.

I gave the elf explicit instruction to not let Bellatrix go anywhere near Polaris without my supervision then asked to be left alone with him. I kissed my daughter's forehead and her short dark hair then gently laid her down in her crib as if she was really just sleeping like I desperately wanted to believe she was. We'd bury her tomorrow but I could let myself play pretend for now.

I scooped up my son and held him closely then sank to the floor with him in my arms, leaning against his cradle and finally allowing myself to really cry.

The next day was worse. I buried Sadira all on my own. I didn't even tell Bellatrix where her body was and decided to notify our families about it at a later time when I was more emotionally prepared to deal with the loss. I went up to the nursery again to pick up Polaris but he was gone.

I called Jolly, the elf I'd placed in charge of him.

"Please, Master," it sobbed. "Jolly is sorry…"

"What?"

"Mistress Bellatrix has the baby. She used the Cruciatus and it hurt and-"

"Damn her!" I exclaimed. I pointed my wand at the elf and muttered the first few syllables of the killing curse before I decided there'd been enough death in this house, even if a pathetic house elf was nothing compared to a pureblood child. I still had my son to save.

I found her in the bathroom. It was like some twisted déjà vu. She was in the same place, crying again, but with Polaris this time. He wasn't cradled in her arms though; he was pinned under the water by them.

"No!" I screamed, too late.

I snatched my son, my heir, and my future out of her hands, out of the water.

"Rodolphus," she gasped. "Please… I didn't mean to."

"You didn't mean to?"

"He was crying. I didn't want my baby to cry. But every time I took him out of the water, he kept crying.

"Did you try… _not_ drowning him?" I snapped sarcastically.

_Too late_. I howled in pain and grabbed Bellatrix without thinking. I held her under the water so long I almost killed her. _Wouldn't that have been so perfect?_

(A/N: Well, I did warn you... it's okay if you hate it but please do tell me what you thought. Sadira means "_running from water" in Arabic, Vida means "Life" in Spanish, Polaris is the North Star, one of the brightest and, Mordred was the son of Morgan la Fey in the King Arthur legend. I think Polaris would have been the perfect heir if... you know, that hadn't happened. I cried a little while writing this but my goal is not to make cry and I'm really sorry if I did. Love.) _


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